I have written a new article in which I try to infuse life into the concept of Thanatos (death drive). Could this have some relevance to Remo's theory, in which Eros is very central? Following Freud, I discuss Eros versus Thanatos as antagonistic forces of the psyche, similar to how Roth's Logos Self is hostile to the Eros Self. Central to my argument is that Eros sets in motion the regressive movement into the symbiotic condition with the unconscious (the Mother goddess). This is experienced as a breach of the incest-barrier, and that's why phallocentric consciousness governed by the Thanatos principle impedes this movement by destructive means, in which wholeness is spoliated. However, I cannot find an adequate description of Remo's theory on his webpages. It is a jumble, I think.

Thanatos

Abstract: The principle of the death drive (Thanatos) is understood as a genuine psychic force connected with the mother complex. Destructivity in repetitious form temporarily emancipates the ego from unconscious dependency in the psychology of phallic-narcissism. It is also present in the immature or fragile personality (the weak ego). Thanatos is unconsciously therapeutic in that it aims at strengthening a weak ego consciousness, thus to ward off unconscious wholeness, invariably associated with the Mother archetype, in which the borders of personality are dissolved. Although it serves to avoid regression, destructiveness can become obsessive. The sun-god Horus's perennial struggle against Seth, in Egyptian mythology, illustrates the dynamics of Thanatos. Accordingly, every night Seth defends the sun bark by defeating the negative Mother in the guise of the chaos monster Apophis. Thanks to Seth, the sun of consciousness is restored and can rise again in the morning. In history, phallocentric culture is sustained by Thanatos in its restorative capacity, but this runs counter to the ideals of patriarchal culture, whose guiding star is Horus.

Regarding the Thanotos (death drive) I read somewhere in one of Jung's works that he thought that an increase in homosexuality was Nature’s way of trying to limit human population. I found it to be a connection to the movie Roger and Me by Michael Moore when in Flint, Michigan he interviewed some of the people laid off by GM's CEO Roger Smith back in the 1980s. One of them was a woman raising rabbits to sell for food in cages in her back yard. She noted that if too many rabbits built up in a cage the males would eat each other's balls off - Video.

Could one say that Nature has ways to work against humanity due to its overbreeding.

That was only a remark he made. It is far-fetched, I think. How could our biological nature detect that there is over-population, and on what criteria, thus to alter the genetic makeup?

I argue that Thanatos is a psychological function that accompanies the ego complex, as shadow accompanies light. To the extent that the ego is biologically founded, so is Thanatos. In Egypt, Horus establishes dominion over Seth by adopting Seth as his son. Horus is the modern ego, Seth is the shadow. This is a very sound map of the psyche. The corresponding relation in Christianity is that the shadow is throughly rejected and relegated to the underworldly realm.

I argue that an unconscious destructive wish surfaces when people are threatened with unconscious wholeness. For instance, the reason behind the Yugoslavian self-destruction was their long-standing wish to live in unison, to the effect that the Mother goddess made the scene, turning Yugoslavia into a collective suicide sect. According to this argument, Thanatos exists as a defensive function of psychic economy, imperative to our survival as species. However, if the ego is viewed as a biological function, so is Thanatos. But its destructive function is applied in the psychological realm. There is no wish to self-destruct as a biological species. The destructive wish serves to promote ego-consciousness, thus to maintain the borders of personality, which is essential to the long-term survival of both the individual and the species.

Friedrich Nietzsche said that the struggle of warfare was to be sought after because it paved the way for the Übermensch. Nietzsche speaks with the voice of Thanatos. His motif is explicitly to promote the Übermensch, which is the sun-hero. Evidently, Nietzsche isn't out to destroy the human species, but to augment its survival-value. What is the consequence when the European welfare states accept immigrants from regions where a passive life-style is wholly acceptable, if not ideal? In Sweden, at least 85% of the Somali group is unemployed. An immigrant mother with three children gets between kr 27,000-35,000 ($3,860-$5,000) in allowances per month, during the first couple of years. With every new child, the amount is increased generously. Apart from more child allowance, they get a bonus during the first three years of kr 3,000 ($430) per month, an amount which the politicians now want to double.

I don't mean to disparage these people. We are providing them with very comfortable living circumstances, so how are they expected to react? But I know that Thanatos is mounting in the unconscious, and that's why the suburbs are burning over here. The politicians react by providing immigrants with even more free resources, thus worsening the problem. Surely, the average American must think this is absurd, or is the average liberal American become a devotee to the Mama Cult, too? Although we have a right-wing government in Sweden, politicians over here are devoted to the motherly motif. Now there is even free healthcare for illegal immigrants(!). I think this motif obtains as an effort to repress Nietzschean Thanatos. Hence they allow mass-immigration of ethnicities that are very prone to motherly dependency. On account of this, Thanatos is mounting in the unconscious. I now fear that Europe will burn again, this time in civil war.

How could our biological nature detect that there is over-population, and on what criteria, thus to alter the genetic makeup?

From the science article I referred to...

Quote:

Based on decades of research, clinical practice, and more than 450 authoritative references, homosexuality is not a “lifestyle.” Homosexuality and sexual behavior differences result from sexual center variations in the brain. Homosexuality... is related to hormonal conditioning of the developing brain during fetal development.

Have you read Ginette Paris's little book The Sacrament of Abortion? Is the murder of the unborn another Thanatos (death drive) effect?

How would you understand Jung's pre WW II dream? Would you say that Hitler was gripped by the Thanatos archetype or was he gripped by the Apocalypse archetype that wants to usher in the realization of the alchemical Green-Gold, i.e., the alchemical Christ?

Quote:

Jung was at Bollingen (1939) when the news of the unholy alliance of Germany with Russia burst upon a horrified Europe. Jung was further disturbed by a most indigestible dream which he had immediately afterward. He dreamed that Hitler was “the devil’s Christ,” the Anti-Christ, but that nevertheless, as such, he was the instrument of God. He told me it took him a long time and much effort before he was able to accept this idea. Although Jung had been occupied with the idea of the dark side of God since his childhood, it was still many years before he finally faced the problem in Answer to Job, and the idea that a dangerous madman like Hitler could be the instrument of God was still far from his consciousness when he had this dream.

Jung was in Kusnacht for a day or two when war actually broke out. His secretary told me he was in the garden when she arrived that afternoon. Looking stricken to the heart, he said, “A second world war in one lifetime, how can that be endured?” Later, he sometimes used to say, when things looked very black in the fifties: “I do not think I could survive a third world war.” The prospect of such a war, with the general suffering it would produce, made it almost unbearable for him to contemplate, though he knew that reality cannot be ignored. Barbara Hannah, Jung: His Life and Work, pp. 264-65.

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Mats wrote:

I argue that an unconscious destructive wish surfaces when people are threatened with unconscious wholeness.

Yes, Edinger says a similar thing in Archetype of the Apocalypse: "The world will be united in a mutual mass consciousness our in a mutual mass destruction; either way it will be united."

Abortion is not murder, I think, and it has nothing to do with Thanatos. Thanatos is motivated by such feelings as aggression and hatred, which abortion isn't. I'm not saying that it's unproblematic, but we have to tolerate that life is cruel. Historically, people could not afford yet another child, so they had to make an abortion, or even leave the newborn child in the wood.

I think Edinger says the opposite of what I say. I would argue that "mutual mass consciousness" is the very thing that generates Thanatos. The only advanced consciousness is individual consciousness. If individuation is stemmed, there will be blood. I think Edinger's writings are very inferior.

It's a contradiction in terms. "Individuated" means that you have departed from the collective. If everybody thinks the same, then Thanatos is activated, and they have to kill the Jews, or whatever. If you come to a community where everybody thinks the same - run for your life!

It's a contradiction in terms. "Individuated" means that you have departed from the collective. If everybody thinks the same...

Like this your worldview is too limited to see what Edinger smelled. He was anticipating to a high degree an enormous change in global worldview - something truely apocalyptic (truely revolutionary - the Tikkun) - that there would be a "quantum leap" in consciousness. That "magically" all (survinging) humans would wind up on the same page, i.e., having a one-on-one connection with the World Soul via the Holy Spirit, the Paraclate - the "spirit of truth".

I had previously read your critique of Edinger and found it lacking. There is no way an opus of this caliber could not have suffered innumerable partial ego deaths (transformations, change of worldview) during the development of his opus. In my opinon you completely misunderstand his holding up "the importance of the ego". I knew him and he was not at all like you describe him. The "supremeacy" of the ego he writes about is a an important aspect for if the ego is shattered by its encounter with the Self one become psychotic and therefore unable to be a carrier of the Self - allow it to incarnate into consciousness - a new and more comphrensive worldview.

Let me explain what I mean. Almost thirty years ago I dreamt that I attended som form of New Age congregation in the middle of the night. Together with other people I entered a flying saucer that threw us about in the air in violent movements. During this experience I became conscious for a while. When I went home from the celebration I felt unmoved by the experience and slightly disappointed. I went through the dark wood, and passed a little bridge over a brook. My trouser leg touched a lonely little flower, a Chickweed Wintergreen (which is a little flower that grows in northern Europe, Trientalis europaea L. "Skogsstjärna" - forest star). It was Linnaeus's favourite flower.

On being touched, the forest star immediately unfolded its petals, something that made a strong impression on me. This formally insignificant thing felt much more meaningful than the grand spiritual congregation with flying saucers, etc. I think the message was that collective spirituality has played out its role, and I should search after the lonely forest star. Perhaps Edinger plays a role in a person's spiritual development, just like Castaneda, but at a point in time one must depart. The notion of a 'quantum leap in consciousness, actuating the spirit of truth in all humanity' exemplifies the pagan form of spirituality. It is pagan in the sense that it represents a sophomoric form of spirit. It is not obsolete and useless. It corresponds to a stage in spiritual growth. Isn't this the kind of thing that Remo wants to rectify with his bodily-centered contemplation and imagination, where eros plays a role, instead of grand ideas?

The passing to a higher spiritual level does not signify a collective realization of spiritual truth. I argue that it's the reverse, it is finding the little forest star that has been forgotten in the dark wood, waiting to be touched.

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